Maryland’s strong statewide conservative voice Dan Bongino — and candidate for the GOP nomination (Sixth Congressional District) to the House of Representatives — last Thursday here declared to the GOPEstablishment: “I am serving you with divorce papers”–

“An open letter to the establishment GOP.

I am serving you with divorce papers. For those who are unaware of what happened, the establishment wing of the Party has openly declared war on the grassroots.

For those who say this fight is hurting the Republican ‘brand’ I reply; it is those on both sides of the aisle who have betrayed their principles in the name of Party, that have destroyed their ‘brands’.

As for the GOP, we used to stand for something; a lean, effective government, vibrant and robust individual liberty, and a passionate defense of the value of hard work and a commensurate respect for your wages by consistently fighting for your right to keep more of them. Where do you stand now? I know where the grassroots does.

This is our Party and we will demonstrate to the people we hope to represent that there is a group of people out there who refuse to be part of any ‘managed decline’. We will only be part of a spectacular American resurrection.

America’s best days are ahead and you and your fellow insiders and cronyists and ‘Party before country’ loyalists, on both sides of the aisle, can bathe in your titles and power now but understand that I, and many others, have dedicated our lives to draining the dirty water from the bathtub.

“The question is how we are going to survive this president.”

“’The Republican establishment most certainly does not see any threats to liberty, because it doesn’t care about threats to liberty,’ Codevilla said in a phone interview from his California home last week. ‘Being part of the ruling class, it is more concerned with threats to power.’

The disconnect between the base of voters who expect Republicans to fight for limited government and the behavior of Republican politicians is growing more pronounced, he explained.

‘Why is the Republican leadership part of the ruling class? Because it has constituents other than Republican voters,’ he said. ‘And these constituents are the large corporations and the various monied interests that happen to be the same as the people who support the Democratic Party.’

Codevilla also described the lure of power: ‘There is also another factor — and that is the attraction of power, the attraction of prestige, the attraction of favorable treatment by the media, easy access to the universities and to the prestigious foundations, to the best dinner parties, the A-list in Washington, etc. These things are enormously attractive.’” (HighlightingForum’s.)

Share this:

“While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other.” Angelo Codevilla

This afternoon and tomorrow, December 6-7, the Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) will hold this year’s “Advance” event at The Homestead Resort.

Second, because the Virginia Republican delegation to the House of Representatives includes both the GOP Majority Leader Eric Cantor and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte. (The Judiciary panel has immigration within its jurisdiction.)

Third, because the GOP leadership of the House of Representatives has shown since it came to power in January 2011a profound reluctance to prepare for effective confrontation with the Obama Administration.

Fourth, because both the House Majority Leader and the Speaker give every indication of approving some flavor of amnesty well before our national border with Mexico is fully secured (this is our sovereignty!) and in full knowledge that the Obama Administration may not see itself bound by the terms of any enabling legislation.

Unless this year’s Advance is to be simply another Beauty Contest for Candidates and Incumbents — as if we were in normal times — the Homestead event should be an opportunity for conservatives to buttonhole the Virginia House delegation or their aides, or both, and to begin to organize statewide to bring these members to a better mind and keep them there.

At least two crucial topics should be on the table for informal discussion at the Advance.

“In case you missed it, John Boehner has hired Rebecca Tallent. Tallent worked for the left-of-center ‘Bipartisan Policy Center,’ and is a serious amnesty advocate. She helped John McCain and Ted Kennedy during the Bush era on that disastrous plan.

Here’s what is going to happen.

Boehner will wait until 2014, after qualifying for all the serious challenges to incumbents is over. Then he’ll get all these Republicans talking out of both sides of their mouths and the Democrats together for a bipartisan immigration reform push. The threat of primary challenges well passed, they’ll get their amnesty deal done.”

As senator Jeff Sessions urges here, we need to reach out to “working Americans of all backgrounds.” And protect their livelihoods from the importation of cheap labor.

Federal Spending and Borrowing

The Madison Project’s Daniel Horowitz in “A Second Chance for Republicans” here explained on November 20–

“While we were stymied by fellow Republicans during the actual slowdown, we did succeed at restarting the national discussion on Obamacare. The ensuing breakdown of the private insurance market has given us tailwinds like never before. For the first time in Obama’s presidency, even some of the low-information voters have finally realized the failure of Obama and his signature legislation. Moreover, we know now that the shutdown polling was off base and superficial. Accordingly, it makes no sense why Obamacare should not be a part of the budget discussions. Most people have forgotten or don’t know that the budget impasse was not solved last month. The new budget deadline is January 15 and the new debt ceiling is February 7. The deadline for reaching a budget conference deal is just two weeks after Thanksgiving.”

. . . . . . . . . .

“At the very minimum, conservatives need to push for two concessions:

Even if they already surrendered the budget battle, they must secure an agreement from Democrats to pass all of next year’s 12 appropriations bills in regular order and go to conference on each bill individually. This will lay the groundwork for fighting Obamacare in one or two bills without having the rest of the government as collateral damage in a shutdown. That would give us the opportunity, at the very latest, to fight Obamacare right before the mid-term elections without the specter of a full government shutdown.

Republicans always said they wouldn’t mind fighting just the debt ceiling because there is no direct government shutdown. Well, now is the time to start debunking the myth of default and committing to ending this practice of suspending the debt ceiling law. The debt ceiling fight will coincide with the period of time when American workers begin to receive their first paychecks for 2014. Most people will incur a large bite out of their pay due to the increased withholdings for higher premiums. This will augment the public disquiet that is already brewing from the destruction of private insurance.” (HighlightingForum’s)

And of course be wary of any advice from the Chamber of Commerce. As analyst Horowitz points out–

“. . . [T]he Chamber of Commerce is not conservative, pro-free-market, or even necessarily pro-growth. They support the special interests of big business. Period. When those interests intersect or overlap with free-market, pro-growth policies, such as advocacy for tax cuts and lower regulations, they will side with conservatives. But when those interests require the stewardship of big government intervention, they will side with the forces of statism. Hence, they are not paragons of free-market commerce; they support government-run commerce, albeit with tendentious policies towards their interests. Their special interests support illegal immigration, corporate welfare, increased gas taxes, and an internet sales tax. It’s not surprising that Chamber money pours into K Street coffers to lobby for those goals.” (HighlightingForum’s)

As central goal, Virginia conservatives should now be contriving ways to make all of their House GOP delegation more responsive to an aware and increasingly high-information constituency — rather than too many in the delegation deferring to a big-donor-and-fundraising-oriented House GOP leadership. The House GOP leaders may be seen as adept at “deals”, but they clearly are out of their depth in coping with a revolutionary White House.

(Readers are reminded of two of our posts here and here on Peter Schweizer’s new book Extortion, and this Hoover Institution Fellow’s dismaying findings on how the current House tends to operate.)

“Dulles, VA | November 1, 2013 – Citing his bipartisan record and commitment to transportation solutions, The Honorable Ray LaHood, President Obama’s Secretary of Transportation from 2009-2013, endorsed Delegate Ramadan for re-election to the Virginia House of Delegates this week.’ I proudly endorse David Ramadan’s reelection to the Virginia House of Delegates. David has been a productive, bipartisan member of the House who has effectively represented his constituents in Richmond. David worked personally with me in my capacity as U.S. Secretary of Transportation on the Metro Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County. He understands that commuters need transportation options and played a key role bringing together a coalition to support rail. I know that he is also working hard on badly needed road construction projects in Loudoun and Western Prince William. I hope that you will support David on November 5th,’ said LaHood.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

“Adding to the problem, the Obama Administration has warmly embraced smart-growth policies and, more broadly, increased environmental regulation and restriction of use of natural resources. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is the Administration’s point man in selling smart-growth policies to the American people.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

“It’s bad enough to have a columnist at one of America’s most prominent newspapers regularly singing the praises of Chinese authoritarianism. It’s worse when high-ranking members of the American government do it. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood griped at the Aspen Ideas Festival about having to deal with political opposition, and yearned for the ease in which Beijing could impose solutions without having to deal with dissent:” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

“If there were justice in the world, Michael Huerta would be fired and Ray LaHood impeached. Short of that, Congress should act without delay to free air travelers from the grip of the Washington Monument strategy.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

In a 2009 Hot Air post here Ed Morrissey in his “LaHood goes under the bus on mileage tax,” commented–

“The wonder of this isn’t that the White House rebuked its own Transportation Secretary. The wonder of this is that LaHood didn’t get canned.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

And the enormous future costs here of the “Metro Silver Line extension to Dulles Airport and Loudoun County” on which LaHood brags are well known.

One gets the picture on LaHood.

Mr. Ramadan might more candidly say: “Ray and I are pals, and it looks good to have a Big Transportation Face coming on my stage just days before my reelection to cap off my campaign. And don’t hassle me with all that complicated policy talk. Don’t you understand? Politics in Richmond and Washington are business deals — the General Assembly is not a bunch of scribblers like some conservative think tank. You do what you have to do!”

And the crucial contest: all Virginians concerned with their family’s and their own freedom — from Obamacare, to keeping their Second Amendment rights, to holding off the White House’s war on traditional faith — should vote for Ken Cuccinelli for governor on Tuesdayagainst Terry McAuliffe. Fundraiser McAuliffe would be Mr. Obama’s obedient proconsul for the Old Dominion by speeding along the president’s “transformative” plans in our front yards. Cuccinelli will fight as his record shows to protect Virginians against White House government by executive order, and against bi-partisan high-tax crony-capitalist schemes from Richmond.

Share this:

‘…Speaker John Boehner is interested in crafting a ”grand bargain” on fiscal issues, perhaps as part of a debt-limit agreement. House Republicans tell me he quietly made this known in a series of small meetings on Wednesday afternoon. After that story posted, the emails came fast, including this one from a senior Democratic source, who said Boehner also talked about the idea at the White House on Wednesday night.

‘Boehner raised the prospect of a grand bargain-type deal at the White House meeting and was laughed at because everyone feels like they’ve heard this song and dance before. The general feeling is, if he’s really ready to make some tough choices – read, revenue – then great. But the history of this from where we sit is Boehner talking a big game, then bailing as soon as he runs into the inevitable resistance from a certain faction in his caucus. So we will believe it when we see it, but are proceeding under the assumption that this is just more of the same big talk, no walk.’

Boehner may have been ‘laughed at,’ but that doesn’t mean the pitch is dead, at least according to House insiders. In conversations late tonight, several of them say it remains one of the best options for Boehner, who is struggling to balance the pressure to compromise with his conference’s conservative bent.”

The ‘pressure to compromise’ may be coming in part from Wall Street donors (see the illuminating Politico post here by MJ Lee).

Reportedly, however, the calls from the base to the House last week to stop Obamacare were not only of avalanche volume but exceeded in vehemence even earlier big pushbacks from the conservative grass-roots such as the uproar here over the 2005 Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination.

Clearly senator Ted Cruz sparked and blessed last week’s surge against Leviathan. We are told that the outpouring of calls to stop Obamacare had many GOP members ‘running for the tall grass.’

Trying to put all this in perspective, we revisited the coverage of the Speaker’s ousting of Kansas Representative Tim Huelskamp from his Budget and Agriculture committee posts last December. An article at the time by Dan Voorhis in the Wichita Eagle here quoted a local academic who explained –

“Huelskamp is suffering the consequences of his particularly uncompromising form of conservatism in a body that really exists to make deals and balance competing interests.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

The crux of the matter is that making deals with no higher purpose than to keep one faction of the Political Class in campaign donations — and thus presumably in office at the next election — seems to be how the House GOP leadership sees its role. Whether or not the GOP is in real policy power or merely in ceremonial incumbency apparently doesn’t matter so much.

Consider this: how many House GOP members initially recruited by the Speaker — or by majority leader Eric Cantor and his team — were exhorted to come to Washington–

to ‘take our country back’ from the national elites,

to expand the circle of liberty,

to rein in the administrative state,

to stop Federal funding of intrusions on our freedoms ranging from ‘smart growth’ to ‘common core’ to attacks on free speech and due process in our universities, and

to protect our national sovereignty on our borders and elsewhere?

The question answers itself.

Thus we wonder whether the Speaker’s vision of any bargains is now simply desperate fantasy.

We use the words ‘desperate fantasy’ because the chasm between how he sees his role and what the conservative base expects has grown very wide. And the chasm is not just one of policy. It is also one of trust: the leadership’s scheming behind the scenes (scroll down in our post here) to enact some kind of amnesty might not trouble the majority of House Republicans — but it will surely outrage many of their constituents as it all comes to light.

Share this:

Accuracy in Media (AIM) has established a Citizens’ Commission on Benghazihere – a kind of “shadow” public inquiry. Conservatives everywhere should consider AIM’s example to address issues on any level of government when the bi-partisan fusion party simply won’t act — or fears to investigate.

The Commission launched its inquiry last Monday in Washington, D. C.

We wanted our readers at least to get a flavor of the distinguished panel of experts AIM had recruited together with the some of their initial concerns.

Here are videos which AIM has made available of five experts from Monday’s meeting:

Presumably the Commission will be able to develop even more substantial information on what happened at Benghazi on September 11, 2012, and what steps the U. S. government failed to take here and here to support its officials on the ground.

We call readers’ attention to one particular peril which long-time intelligence expert Clare Lopez raised: the apparent sympathy here of the Obama Administration to the Islamist call for criminalization of speech critical of Islam.

There was speculation (see also Cliff Kincaid’s summary here) by some of the presenters about why Speaker John Boehner persists in blocking Representative Frank Wolf’s proposal here for a select committee on Benghazi – a measure which now has 175 Republican sponsors.

Our own take is that the good Mr. Boehner has an earlier history here of opposing inquiries here into Islamist influence than simply the highly-focussed one on the Benghazi atrocity. Moreover he has taken care not to get into serious confrontations with Mr. Obama. In matters domestic and foreign, John Boehner is a tame Speaker of the House — at a time when the United States has a revolutionary president.

A most interesting question, not directly connected with Benghazi, would be whether Mr. Boehner or his close House circle informally acquiesced in or signed off on the Obama Administration’s 2011 purging of experts and files here from the intelligence community that Islamist organizations found “offensive.”

Kudos to AIM– not just for this major inquiry — but also for showcasing a new way of government accountability at a time when our Political Class seems unable to do little more than protect its narrow interests.

Share this:

Wednesday afternoon Larry Nordvig chief of the Richmond Tea Party spearheaded a sidewalk protest in front of House GOP Majority Whip Eric Cantor’s district office in Glen Allen, Virginia — and organized a town meeting at the nearby Marriott Commonwealth.

Around 300 Tea Partiers from the Old Dominion were able to come by early evening.

Maryland Tea Party organizer Ed Hunter drove down from Talbot County, Maryland and took these pictures giving the flavor of the event–

The closed glass door of Cantor’s district office door reflects the Tea Party gathered on the “wrong side.”

But pro-immigration Virginia Organizing here had no trouble talking with Cantor staff on Wednesday.

“Virginia Organizing and other groups met with U.S. Representative and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office on immigration reform on Wednesday, September 4. The groups asked the Congressman’s legislative director, Cort Bush, for a commitment from Rep. Cantor for a vote on immigration reform by October.”

Many of the conservative faithful are puzzled by the indifference of the House GOP leadership to their voting base.

Patrick Cleburne of VDARE offered this perspective — “Syria: Why Are Boehner And Cantor Defying Base And Ignoring Country? Because They Have ADD!”

Share this:

UPDATE SEPTEMBER 4!FreedomWorks urges us to “Tell Eric Cantor to Defund ObamaCare” (click here to see calling underway) — “The Republican-controlled House of Representatives will soon be voting on a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government. We need to make sure that no resolution contains funding for ObamaCare. Will Republican Majority Leader Eric Cantor stand with the grassroots and vote against ObamaCare funding? Every Congressman needs to know: If you vote to fund ObamaCare, you’re FOR ObamaCare.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

The Highway-Overpass Media: No Amnesty & Defund Obamacare!

Led by organizer Ed Hunter, grass-roots activists displayed their banners (below) on an overpass in Prince Georges County on Saturday. . .

. . . and on another today in Frederick County on Jefferson Pike above Interstate 70. Participants below are from the Frederick Tea Party.

Click on graphic for full size.

As we wrote last Friday, readers who want to get a sense of the current national outrage of the base are invited to read RedState chief Erick Erickson’s “This is ‘Read My Lips’ All Over Again” (click here) –

“Last night, Heritage Action for America had another town hall on its Defund It tour. The fire marshal at their location had to keep the growing crowd at bay. This was not the first time that has happened this past month. All over the country, long lines have appeared at these events. Heritage Action has gotten bigger rooms for the events and still the crowds have filled the town halls. At first, Republicans in Washington claimed it was just the star attraction of Ted Cruz drawing people to the Heritage Action events. But the crowds have gotten bigger and bigger even without Ted Cruz there. . . . In Texas, tea party activists have had town hall meetings with a cardboard cutout of Congressman Pete Sessions, who has refused to meet with his constituents, given his strong opposition to defunding Obamacare. The trend is growing, with other tea party groups doing the same — putting cardboard cutouts of their congressmen on a stage with a full house to berate the absent congressmen. . . . An hour after ForAmerica urged people to call Eric Cantor’s office, more than 1,000 people did. In one hour.” (Highlighting Forum’s.)

And for the longer haul, putting the “Liberty Amendments” into our national conversation can be a unifying move as well as a learning opportunity for Republican delegates and state senators.

Tea Partier Ed Hunter told Blue Ridge Forum that he plans to develop overpass banners to make the driving public aware of the Plot to Save America — Andy McCarthy’s words describing the “Liberty Amendments” here.

Share this:

UPDATES AUGUST 30!

Rush Limbaugh to Mark Levin (click here): “I want to tell you where your book [THE LIBERTY AMENDMENTS] is going to be…it will be in EVERY history book for the life of the country. It will stand as the single most impactful representation of the opposition to Barack Obama and the leftists of the day. It will be hailed as the loudest, most penetrating and intelligent warning to the American people about what was happening to their country, and what to do about it. I’m not prescient enough to know if history will recount the warning as heard and acted on, or lament that it wasn’t.”

Readers who want to get a sense of the current national outrage of the base are invited to read RedState chief Erick Erickson’s “This is ‘Read My Lips’ All Over Again” (click here) – -“Last night, Heritage Action for America had another town hall on its Defund It tour. The fire marshal at their location had to keep the growing crowd at bay. This was not the first time that has happened this past month. All over the country, long lines have appeared at these events. Heritage Action has gotten bigger rooms for the events and still the crowds have filled the town halls. At first, Republicans in Washington claimed it was just the star attraction of Ted Cruz drawing people to the Heritage Action events. But the crowds have gotten bigger and bigger even without Ted Cruz there. . . . In Texas, tea party activists have had town hall meetings with a cardboard cutout of Congressman Pete Sessions, who has refused to meet with his constituents, given his strong opposition to defunding Obamacare. The trend is growing, with other tea party groups doing the same — putting cardboard cutouts of their congressmen on a stage with a full house to berate the absent congressmen. . . . An hour after ForAmerica urged people to call Eric Cantor’s office, more than 1,000 people did. In one hour.” And for the longer haul, putting the “Liberty Amendments” into our conservative conversation can be a unifying move as well as a learning opportunity for Republican delegates and state senators.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Liberty Amendments” Fight Will Revitalize the Grass Roots

On Tuesday Phyllis Schlafly declared (click here) that conservative authors (such as Mark Levin and his “Liberty Amendments”) “are fooling themselves when they suggest that Article V creates a path to bypass Congress with a ‘convention of states.'”

“Phyllis Schlafly is a great American and a great leader, but her speculations about the nature of the Constitution’s ‘convention for proposing amendments’ are nearly as quaint as Dante’s speculations about the solar system. Those speculations simply overlook the last two decades of research into the background and subsequent history of the Constitution’s amendment process. They also ignore how that process actually has worked, and how the courts elucidate it.”

But let’s look at the larger, immediately pressing crisis: the thrust of Levin’s argument is that we must engage delegates and state senators in a national effort to restore the Constitution. Levin gives us a place to start and maps out a path forward — using, as author Levin points out, the amendment path incorporated by the framers into the Constitution itself.

This effort will gather thoughtful Democrats and independents to our cause.

It will also throw in sharp relief the constitutional failures of recent Congresses as well as the expanding peril of the Administrative State.

By the time national popular support for constitutional restoration has grown sufficiently for a convention to be called to consider a specific agenda, the Congress will have little choice but to respond. A future Congress itself might even send to the states for possible ratification one or two of the Liberty Amendments – no doubt cherry-picking the most popular and least threatening to that branch’s overreach.

We have already entered a post-constitutional time.

Whatever supposed dangers may attend Levin’s course of action are trivial compared to any more inaction to fix a Congress and a House GOP Leadership that is shamelessly Constitution-indifferent.

To declare that the Boehner-Cantor circle is supine in using the power of the purse to protect our liberties is to view them in the most charitable way.

More realistically, this Congressional cabal is likely guided by major donors (click here) and apparently believes they can have “understandings” with a president whose revolutionary politics they simply cannot grasp.

They believe “governing ” is about making “deals,” and seem to agree with senator John McCain that constitutional “niceties” and principled legislating are the concerns of “wacko birds.”

Virginia conservatives are in a strong position to rein in Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and to discourage Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte — whose panel handles immigration matters — from following the GOPLeadership on their devious path to amnesty.

Yet what Maryland or Virginia GOP elected officials or Party leaders are speaking up on the constitutional and policy abdication of the House GOP Leadership?

And Maryland Representative Andy Harris, this year appointed (click here) by this GOPLeadership to the House Appropriations panel, has just sponsored a Maryland fundraiser for the Speaker (click here).

Moreover this House GOPLeadership simply doesn’t see their job as expanding the circle of liberty.

Only Representative Frank Wolf — in fighting for a select committee on Benghazi — stands up to the Boehner Machine. Yet most Virginia Republican politicians don’t “get” even the national importance of revealing all the facts on what happened nearly a year ago next September 11. If they did, they might loudlytalk up Wolf’s select committee proposal.

MakingTheLiberty Amendments part of the conservative conversation is already energizing our brothers and sisters badly demoralized by the GOP Leadership’s betrayal of the November 2, 2010 Tea Party-enabled House victory.

And highlighting, then explicating, each of The Liberty Amendments enables the grass roots to see precisely where the Congress and the Court and the Administrative State have gone awry. Levin’s well-crafted recommended amendments can serve as a unifying and positive program.

That is where our immediate efforts should focus — on explaining each proposed amendment and encouraging state lawmakers to make them part of their public back and forth.

We should not let the runaway-amendments-convention fear freeze us in place.

Share this:

UPDATES

VIDEO “Hannity, Levin on ‘Liberty Amendments': What Is the Second, Unused Method to Amend the Constitution?” (Click here for video viaBreitbart)

“What Has Mark Levin Wrought?” asks James V. Capua in the American Thinker (click here) – “What he delivers…is a vast, potentially game-changing political arsenal that can be drawn upon by everyone from had-it-up-to-here Tea Partiers to Republican candidates at least sentient enough to know they need something more than budget and deficit talk. Want to tell Karl Rove that he and his white board have had their day? Want alternative arguments for attempting to convince wooden-headed Republican campaign contributors that they need to improve their selection standards? Want to find a framework to create a working political alliance between Conservatives and Libertarians for 2014 and 2016? Want a positive agenda to undergird a primary purge of inert Republican officeholders? Hell, want a platform for a broad-based third party of the Right, or just a useful new PAC to divert yet more conservative dollars from the lame RNC?” . . . . “One of the most malignant consequences of Republican betrayal of Tea Party exertions in 2010 has been its effect on conservative citizens’ morale. Nothing is more dispiriting than being played for a sucker. How then to rouse conservatives for the next battle? What about a principled yet tangible agenda that transcends the candidate and facilitates building a winning coalition?” . . . . “The Liberty Amendments offer a vehicle for creating a diverse constitutional restoration coalition, outside of the parties, but without actually attempting to replace one, with a common allegiance over and above policy notions and politicians’ beloved ‘plans’ to help single-parent families with children between the ages of seven and thirteen. Imagine the result — candidates for all levels of office, from local to national, endorsing, to coin a phrase, fundamental transformation, a transformation, moreover, for which the medium — primarily state and local action – is also the message.” (HighlightingForum’s.)

Restoring Our Republic: Quiz GOP Politicians on ‘Liberty Amendments’

“The nation has entered an age of post-constitutional soft tyranny.” – Mark Levin

Mark Levin’s new book The Liberty Amendments may well spur the conservative movement to begin the restoration of constitutional government in earnest — just as Angelo Codevilla’s 2010 article on the Ruling Class helped everyone on the Right understand what the American polity had turned into.

We need, however, to get his proposals into our conversation with GOP politicians and into their conversations with each other.

We can think of no more useful means of doing so than supplementing August Recess grass-roots questions about Giant Amnesty and Obamacare by querying GOP incumbentsabout author Levin’s specific proposals.

And as we prepare to do this by reading (and re-reading) constitutional expert Levin’s plain-words and relatively brief book, we will gain a real understanding of the issues with which the Framers wrestled and why they matter right now as we try to regain our freedoms from the Federal Leviathan.

And let’s include in this probing about the TheLiberty Amendments, GOP candidates for Congressional seats, for statewide office, and for delegates and state senators!

After all, what we are really asking is whether the GOP incumbent or candidate seeks – to use Levin’s phrase – to expand the circle of liberty, or just to support political deals blessed by their party leaders for favored donors or organizations: doing what is today Congressional business as usual, but likely on an increasingly leaky ship of state.

Levin declares —

“Today Congress operates not as the Framers intended, but in the shadows, where it dreams up its most notorious and oppressive laws, coming into the light only to trumpet the genius and earnestness of its goings-on and to enable members to cast their votes.”

Will the Speaker dash back to Washington, D. C. to address this unlawful practice of rewriting laws when the president finds it convenient — which Mr. Obama himself described at his August 9 press conference? How would House GOP members in our region — Andy Harris and Eric Cantor and Bob Goodlatte, just to pick three — move to cure this severe wound to our body politic?

If GOP politicians won’t discuss the TheLiberty Amendments in these grave times, they may be good Republicans by Beltway standards — but they are no friends of conservatives.